


as essential as sunlight

by canticle



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Touch-Starved, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 08:17:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17956943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canticle/pseuds/canticle
Summary: In the absence of touching and being touched, people of all ages can sicken and grow touch starved. Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight.Ryuji's been touch starved for a long time. A full year of freely-offered gestures from Akira goes a long way towards fixing that.





	as essential as sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> hello!!!!!! god i am so glad this event is over, i've had this sitting in my drafts for what feels like literally ever!!!!! sitting on something without posting it is like, killer, kills me dead, where is the validATION 
> 
> anyway!!! my partner for this fic is the wonderful [ cyan!!](https://twitter.com/cyan_idol) the work they did is, as you'll see, completely and utterly sublime, and i'm so happy that we got to work together. thank you again so much cyan!!! your amazing art enhances the particular scene it's in so high it ricochets off the stratosphere!!
> 
> the title of this fic comes from the quote in the summary by diane ackerman!
> 
> thank you all so much for reading!

Ryuji’s been touch starved for a long time.

Maybe that’s not what he would call it— he doesn’t really have the words to describe it, the way he feels the need to wrap himself so tightly in his sheets overnight just to feel the pressure on his skin, the way he pummels his blankets and pillows into a tight cocoon around his body, covering him, surrounding him. Something inside him feels restless and unfulfilled when he looks at the casual touches of friendship in the hallways, when he thinks about how the track team used to slap him on the shoulder, ruffle his hair, help him rub the knots out of his legs after practice, and how he’d return the favor.

The language of touch is one Ryuji doesn’t speak well anymore— or maybe it’s that the dialect has shifted. Once touching and being touched was normal, fun, comforting. Now all he gets is harsh looks and snide words, hands shaped into fists, sneakers kicking at his bad leg to watch him stumble, to make him break.

As they should, as he was the one to break them. It’s only fair, right? It’s only justice, right?

It’s all he has, and he craves it even as the bruises lay themselves into his skin like paint.

His ma works nights now; he’s lucky if he catches her on a weeknight before she wakes up, poking into his room to blow him air kisses; luckier still if he catches her on a weekend and has a few blessed, peaceful moments to talk. Those days are few and far between. Shujin isn’t a cheap school, and his ma works hard to make sure he has the sort of education she never got to have.

It would’ve been nice if he could’ve kept his track scholarship, but he sure screwed the pooch on that one, and now she has to work twice as hard. He deserves everything he gets just for that alone.

Even now, even this— the hard press of metallic hands holding him to the wall is enough to make his skin shiver, enough to almost overload him, aching for just a little more, a little longer, even if it hurts, just another bit to tell him that he’s real, that he exists outside of himself, that he’s not just a ghost inhabiting the space a human boy used to, and he hates it, hates that he craves it, hates it enough that he’d slice himself to ribbons now if it meant that he could get himself away, get this strange transfer student away too, but—

Then fucky stuff happens. And it’s real fucky.

And after, when the transfer student looks back with that mask and that coat and those gloves and reaches out—

When Kurusu puts a hand on his shoulder, a full body shudder goes through him.

Not because it hurts. Oh god, absolutely not. It’s a touch that’s firm but not painful, heavy enough to have substance, to have weight, to make him feel a little more real in a situation that’s gone a hell of a long way towards making him think that he’s actually died and gone to some sort of purgatory.

Kurusu grabs him by the shoulder and looks him in the eye and asks him if he’s alright in that soft, deep voice of his, and Ryuji feels abruptly more present, more _real_ , than he has in almost a year.

He wipes away a bit of blood from beneath Ryuji’s nose; Ryuji barely feels the pain, too caught up in the smooth slick slide of the leather against his skin, against the top of his lip, Kurusu’s cool fingertips tilting Ryuji’s jaw this way and that, _tsk_ ing at the bruises the weird version of Kamoshida left on his face.

It lingers, persists, even when Kurusu lifts his hand and turns away, the long black coat shimmering away in a flash of blue fire. Ryuji can feel it like a physical presence, like a tangible brand, a warm, heavy weight that his fingers keep creeping up towards.

Not because it hurts, no, but because it’s not malicious, because it’s full of intent to help and not to hurt. Kurusu’s hand on him has been the nicest touch he’s felt in the last ten months.

It’s sad that that’s all it takes for Ryuji to gravitate towards him. Pathetic that he hopes for another.

  
  
  


Honestly, Ryuji doesn’t understand why Akira’s upset.

He deserves this of all things. He deserved every swing and every bruise, one last goodbye from the track team he wronged so grievously. It’s their right to layer hands and fists and knees onto him until he’s overwritten, a cracked slate with chalk dust permanently embedded in the fissures. His mistakes are marked on them just as much, aren’t they?

Akira doesn’t understand. He’s not the type of guy who _can_ understand; whatever wrongs that’ve happened to him were external. He’s always acted out of the goodness of his heart. But Ryuji? All of Ryuji’s fuckups and flaws have come from himself. And so when the time comes for the payback he deserves, he has to tell Akira to stay back, sharper than he’s ever spoken to him, sharp enough to make him freeze in his place even as Ryuji turns back to face his comeuppance.

His face is thunderous as he crouches over Ryuji afterwards; vaguely, Ryuji wonders if Akira’s going to throw a punch, too. He’d deserve it just as much as the others for putting that expression onto his face in the first place, wouldn’t even flinch about it either.

When Akira’s hand moves forward, he closes his eyes.

But instead of a fist, all he feels is fingertips on his cheek, tilting his jaw further into the light, looking him over clinically but not impassionately. Akira’s eyes are full of fire and sparks, his mouth a thin, tight line, and something like guilt starts to coil in the back of Ryuji’s throat.

His hands are gentle, though, as he helps Ryuji to stand, his arm firm and unwavering around his waist as Ryuji limps to the bathroom, supporting him while he swishes and spits, swishes and spits into the sink until the water runs mostly clear.

It’s fine, man, see? His lip’s barely split. Sure, he’s gonna have one hell of a shiner, but he doesn’t even have any busted blood vessels in his eye, and his nose stopped bleeding like ten minutes ago. Seriously, dude, turn on some chill.

Akira doesn’t. Not even when Ryuji insists that he can walk himself, thank you very much, because as much as he likes the way Akira’s arm feels around his waist there’s no way he can allow himself to want it to linger. That’s not for him, that’s not a path he can let himself go down, growing over-fond of touches freely given until he turns needy. But Akira still lingers— curled in the hem of his shirt, his knee pressed hard against Ryuji’s on the subway back to LeBlanc (and he knows how to patch himself up, he _does,_ he’s more’n happy to do it himself, but the way Akira looks at him when he tries to walk the other way makes the words die quiet deaths in his mouth.)

His ma is a nurse. She’s been patching Ryuji up as long as he can remember, from dumb childhood accidents to the one memorable fistfight he’d gotten into in middle school, to the long bouts of physio after— after. Her touch has always been swift and clinical, peroxide and rubbing alcohol applied without mercy, because the memory of the care should be strong enough to dissuade him next time, eh Ryu-kun?

(It never is, and never will be.)

Akira’s almost the exact opposite.

He’s slow. He’s gentle. Why is he so gentle, so slow? His hands are so deft with the washcloth, dotting away fresh blood from the scrapes near his mouth, the bead of crimson swelling at the center of his lip. Ryuji wants to make a mother hen joke so bad, wants to try and clear some of this weird aura between them, but he thinks if he moves away from Akira right now that he’ll do something they’ll both regret.

He’s so _tender,_ so hesitant wiping the grime from Ryuji’s forehead, his cheek, the bridge of his nose— no places that strictly _need_ them, no places with scrapes or bruises left behind.

He wants to make a comment about fussy housewives with soft hands, but the dark look in Akira’s eyes shrivels his tongue in his mouth even as Akira dabs delicately at the split near the corner of his mouth. Felt like knuckles driving straight into his teeth, that one did; his lip is swollen fat and hot, and he should put some ice on it, should mention something, _anything,_ but Akira’s got him pinned like a bug to a corkboard with nothing but a soft touch and a firm look.

The whole thing screams of an intimacy that he’d never even considered. He knows the texture of the pad of Akira’s thumb brushing the inside of his lip, knows the way his palm feels when it’s curved around his cheek, tilting his jaw this way and that as he dabs antibiotic ointment onto the worst of his scrapes with a cotton swab. He places bandages and gauze squares with neat, almost militant precision, and when he speaks his voice is low, like he’s summoning it forth from somewhere deep inside, dragging words kicking and screaming into the light.

“I’m not going to let you do this again,” he says, his eyes flicking down and away— like he’s _guilty,_ like he thinks he has something to be guilty for, like he feels like he’s responsible for Ryuji’s shitty impulse control and bad decisions, and Ryuji’s torn between snorting and waving him off, or grabbing his hand in both of his own.

He does neither in the end, opting for casual instead; “What,” he says, leaning back on one wrist and ignoring the flare of pain it brings, “like you could’ve effin’ stopped me?”

“Could’ve stopped them.” There’s something dark and sullen in his voice; he pulls one of Ryuji’s hands up between them like there’s nothing else he wants to do in the world but bandage away the marks of Ryuji’s failures one by one, like if he’s not busy disinfecting his scrapes and wrapping him back up then he has no purpose left in the world. “Should’ve.”

“Nah, man, your probation—”

_“Fuck_ my probation,” Akira hisses. The cuss word makes Ryuji sit bolt upright— he’s _never_ heard Akira use language like that, not once in the two plus months he’s known the guy, and it makes something uneasy curl in the pit of his stomach. “If you— if you _make me_ watch anyone else beat you up again, I’m not gonna be held liable for what I do to them afterwards.”

The whole time, his hands stay cradling either side of Ryuji’s jaw, holding him gently but firmly, keeping him still and steady, a counterpoint to the wild flips and spins his stomach’s decided to start doing. “H-holy shit, man,” he laughs unsteadily— how does he even respond to something like that? Does he laugh it off? Does he curl his hand around Akira’s wrist and nuzzle into his palm like, _fuck,_ like he desperately wants to? “Y’don’t— I’m not worth goin’ to _juvie_ for, dude—”

Akira shakes him.

Just a little bit, but it jostles him enough that he winces, and Akira snatches his hands back like Ryuji's turned to fire. Their absence is immediately noticeable; he feels cold, even as his face heats up, a late reflex. “Sorry,” Akira mumbles, shoving his hands in his pockets. “That was probably a little too far.”

No. It wasn’t, and Ryuji doesn’t know how to convey that, but it’s important that he does because he might be dumb but he can sense their friendship hanging on a hinge, a pivotal moment, one of those paths where you press a or b but you can’t undo your choice after.

“I ain’t never had a friend like you, man,” he admits low and breathless, kicking his foot out until the toe of his shoe rests right on top of Akira’s sneaker. “Don’t go deprivin’ me when I’m still gettin’ used to you, alright?”

It’s the right thing. Akira’s mouth quirks up into something small and silly and a little wobbly. “Then stop inviting trouble,” he says, reaching out to clasp Ryuji by the shoulder.

The warmth of his touch stays long after Akira’s hand has already moved on.

  
  
  


God, it’s stupid, it’s so _stupid,_ but Mona’s comments have been digging in under his skin all afternoon and it’s puttin’ him off his game so _bad._

It’s a shit excusE. they’ve got a job to do and he should be able to ignore a couple of sharp, offhanded jabs. It’s nothing worse than the usual but somehow today he can’t focus on anything but the harsh words, he keeps falling under bad effects, giving into his rage and coming out of it with ichor up to his elbows and his health drained all the way down to the gutter and Joker’s eyes— Akira’s eyes— weighing on him heavy as bricks.

He tries to do better. He _wants_ to do better— he’s Akira’s left-hand man in the Metaverse, even though Makoto— _Queen—_ has taken over a lot of the tactical side. He’s still the first person Akira calls on, and it fills him with pride to stand by his side and lay the hurt down.

Today, though...it’s just not his day.

He’s been knocked down three or four times by now, each time by one particular subset of shadow that keeps cropping up in this area of Mementos. It’s like they know to target him right where it hurts with gusts of wind that cut and slice, slapping him upside the head and sending him staggering, reeling, half blind and mostly deaf and barely able to think. One gets him in the side of the face so hard he spins, then catches him on the way down with a gust from above that drives him into the ground so hard he  feels like his fucking _leg_ breaks again.

For a long moment, for what feels like forever, his entire existence is just narrowed down to the spinning in his head and the pain in his leg and the endless, formless, crushing disappointment and rage he feels. Can’t even keep to his goddamn feet in the middle of a battle, huh? How the hell is he supposed to stay by Akira’s side like this? He hates this so _fucking_ much, this permanent weakness, the ache and the agony when he overstimulates it inside the Metaverse or out, and he hisses a breath in through his teeth, unsure if he’s going to scream or sob.

Joker hits the ground beside him hard.

He looks pale and drawn, Mementos dirt scrubbed over his cheek and dust on his clothes, but there’s nothing but determination in his eyes when he reaches out and takes Ryuji by the shoulder. Without a word Leanan Sidhe appears over his shoulder, her eyes crinkling in mirth as she blows him a kiss, as Joker’s hands fill with bright green energy that funnels into him, takes the ache straight out of his bones and leaves only endorphins and a peaceful, hazy lassitude behind.

It takes Joker a moment to recover; he sags down until his palms hit the dirt, his breath heaving out of his lungs like he’s been punched, swaying as if he’s liable to fall over at any moment. Ryuji raises a worried hand up to his shoulder, but before he can make contact Joker heaves himself back up again, dusting his hands off, his normal post-battle stoicism wrapped around him like clingfilm, shrouding his expression.

The pain isn’t completely gone; there’s still discomfort around the edges of his awareness. Not enough to prevent him from walking, but enough that it makes him hesitate to bear weight on his leg again. He doesn’t wanna show weakness, especially after the effort Joker just went through to patch him up; he doesn’t wanna limp and stagger over to the Monamobile and see the pity in everyone else’s eyes. He’s not broken, damnit, so why won’t his body get the memo already??

Before he can chew on the decision anymore, there’s hands wrapped around his biceps, heaving him upwards. He yelps, makes a protesting noise, but it’s too late; Joker’s shoulder is under his arm, keeping him up and supported, almost pulling him upwards. “Dude,” he hisses, “y’don’t need to—”

“S fine,” Joker— Akira now, even if he’s still in the garb and the mask, this is a particularly _Akira_ tone of voice— says without looking over. There’s exhaustion in his voice that goes all the way to his bones, and if the lighting in Mementos wasn’t so wonky Ryuji would say he’s paler than he usually is, but...he can’t tell. Akira’s never more opaque than when he’s hiding something behind those dumb grey eyes of his.

Ryuji hasn’t been this close to someone since the last time someone took a nasty tumble on the track. It was during a relay, and someone else had run right over the top of his teammate, leaving long red gashes in the side of his calf. The spikes on the bottoms of their running shoes tore his skin open like nothing but tissue paper, and he’d yelled so loud, so raw, hands clasped hard over his wound, red blood spilling out between his fingers. He and two other teammates had darted in as soon as it was clear, hefted him up and off the track, his pained noises hot and wet in Ryuji’s ear.

This is nothing like that, of course. He’s the injured one this time (he’s _not_ , something stubbornly insists inside him, he’s _fine_ ) but Akira stays just as sturdy under him as he and his other teammates had done for Nakohara.

At least, he does until they get to the van; Ryuji transfers his weight to the door in preparation to heave himself in— and, unbalanced, Akira sways dangerously behind him, staggers, and nearly collapses.

Ann swears loudly, flinging the passenger side door open and springing out just in time to keep him from faceplanting into the disgusting ground. Makoto’s already on her way around too, her voice blistering and vitriolic but her hands kind as she helps prop Akira up. Ryuji turns, wanting to help— wanting to do _anything—_ but Yusuke catches his elbow and tugs him into the van fully. “You cannot help him if you also swoon,” he says quiet and firm, his hold unyielding. “Sit down and have a drink.”

Outside the door, just beyond his sightline, Akira makes a cranky noise. “I’m _fine._ ”

“You’re a _dumbass,_ ” Ann says viciously; Ryuji sees her stomp her foot. “You can’t just drain yourself like that!”

“Can too.” He sounds like a goddamn toddler; Ryuji doesn’t bother to stifle a laugh around his mouthful of cracker. “Quiet, peanut gallery.”

“ _You_ be quiet,” Makoto says; there’s the sound of a crack and a grunt, and then she heaves Akira’s limp body into the van for Yusuke to catch. “Chew on that Revival Bead for a while and think about what you’ve done.”

“I hate the way these taste,” Akira whines from where he’s fallen into the gap between Ryuji’s prone form and the backrest. He sounds garbled, like he’s sucking on a jawbreaker. Ryuji winces in sympathy; the Revival Beads taste like ass, and take forever to dissolve unless you wanna crack your teeth chomping down too hard.

Both the front doors slam shut again as Makoto and Ann take their places, and Yusuke settles back into the seat behind them, already back to work on the sketch he’s been roughing out this trip. Akira makes no effort to move, and Ryuji doesn’t either; he’s so tired, and Akira’s long, warm weight against him is...really nice.

But beneath the niceness there’s a whole load of guilt.

Akira’s alternately limp and tense as Makoto pilots the Monavan  along the tracks; the harder jolts make his breath hiss out unevenly. When they take a sharp right to avoid a charging shadow Ryuji’s body rolls right up against him before he can brace himself, and Akira wheezes out a pained little chuckle but doesn’t make any motion to squirm away. It can’t be comfortable for him.

“Sorry, man,” Ryuji mumbles, and wiggles a bit. “Lemme—”

“You’re fine.” He can barely hear Akira’s voice under the thrum of Mona’s engine and the casual conversation from the front seat.

It’s not fine, though. “Let me _apologize,_ ” he says, trying for firm and only getting an elbow in the sternum for his troubles. “If I hadn’t been so spacey today, y’wouldn’t’ve had to—”

“What the goddamn hell was that contraction,” Akira blurts, thrashing in a messy tornado of leather coattails and bright red gloves to face him with the biggest, tiredest shit-eating grin Ryuji’s ever seen. Beneath the manic glint in his eye, he’s pale and drawn, dark circles of exhaustion making his grey eyes look washed out, almost pale. It’s almost enough to distract him from the fact that Akira’s all but laying on top of him now, his knee slung over Ryuji’s thigh, his elbow and forearm braced on Ryuji’s chest.

Mementos is always weirdly chilly, but Ryuji’s never been warmer in his life. Especially when he realizes that one of his arms is trapped underneath Akira, wedged up along his back and almost holding them flush together. He feels heat gathering in his cheeks and tilts his head back, watching the weird Mementos lights ebb and flow around them.

“‘M sorry,” he offers again, this time barely more than a breath.

“Don’t be,” Akira says, just as quietly. The hand on his chest pats him twice, sharply, then winds around the scarf on his neck and tugs. “I—”

Something soft and shivery hangs in the air between them, fragile as spun glass.

It’s broken when Ann twists around in her seat and leers at them. “You guys look cozy.”

“Skull makes a great body pillow,” Akira shrugs.

“Joker and Sku-ull, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N— “

“Shaddup!!” Ryuji barks, slapping the wall of the van with an open palm, and Morgana squawks and swerves them all into a wall.

  
  
  


The tail end of spring is humid as all hell, and the summer promises to be even hotter and stickier.

Ryuji’s apartment has air conditioning. It’s loud as all hell and only really cools down the living room, but it works; most of the time, if he’s not slumming it in the Shibuya arcade he’s stretched out on his couch under the desultory fan, trying to watch whatever’s on the tv over the noise of the A/C unit. It’s annoying, but it works.

Akira’s attic bedroom does _not._

It’s a rainy summer, rainier and more humid than usual, and the sound of the unit creaking in the window, washing out all other sounds of life, sinks down into the back of Ryuji’s skull and digs in with claws.  He’s never had an issue with it like this before, but something about the endless drone, the loud, overwhelming white noise combined with the clammy air makes him want to kick over trash cans and smash windows, commit any mayhem he can possibly manage.

He finds himself in Akira’s hot, muggy attic more often than not, if they’re not busy in Mementos. It’s disgustingly sticky, sure, to the point where the sweat beads on the back of his neck even in his tank top (and, god, how the hell is Akira managing in not one but _two_ shirts _and_ long pants??) but Akira has a fan strong enough to chug the stagnant attic air around, and between that and copious amounts of ice water, they make do.

He doesn’t know why he feels calmer under Akira’s watchful eye.

Maybe it’s the hominess the cafe air lends. Yusuke’s mom’s painting still hangs right by the doorway, almost obscured in the darkness, looking so perfect on the wall that it’s like the cafe was built to suit it. The smells of coffee and curry permeate every surface, and Ryuji never goes home with an empty stomach.

Plus, _Akira._

All he has for furniture besides his bed is two shitty wooden chairs and an old couch that has _no_ business being as comfortable as it is. After the first few days of getting ass splinters, Ryuji insists on twisting the tv so it faces the couch, sprawling there like he owns the place. All Akira does is raise his eyebrow; he even joins Ryuji eventually, two gross sweaty teenagers in a gross hot room playing gross outdated video games.

Ryuji thinks he couldn’t be happier if he actively tried.

As the month rolls on, June tipping into July tipping into August, his boundaries retract, become permeable, vanish entirely. It’s not uncommon for the two of them to start at opposite ends of the couch and just...inch inwards, like slow magnets, until their shoulders touch, their arms brushing, until they’re in easy range to knock knees and nudge elbows into ribs.

Sometimes, if he’s feeling bold, Ryuji swings his legs up and into Akira’s lap, sprawling the full length of the couch. Akira never complains; his hands splay across the bare skin of Ryuji’s shins, on his knee, teasing the hair there, pinching him if he sasses too much. It’s an incredible distraction, one Ryuji only lets himself indulge in on days that the rain comes down in torrents and they’re stuck inside marathoning shitty tv shows.

When Akira touches him like this, all his awareness narrows like he’s trying to channel himself into the few square inches of skin beneath his fingertips. Like he wants to exist only in the spaces Akira’s touching, nerves alight. Nothing really ever makes him feel so present— not running, not fighting, not eating. Only when Akira’s hands are on his bare skin does his brain start to fizzle out at the root, simple animal comfort turning him slack and restful.

Sometimes he falls asleep to the patterns Akira traces on his bare skin. Akira never gives him any sort of shit for it, just grins at him and tells him to wipe the drool off his face.

(There’s never any drool. Akira just likes to watch him squirm. Ryuji doesn’t know why he likes it so much.)

On the nights that he stays late, Akira gets softer, more malleable. He becomes loose when he’s tired, the tension in his shoulders and spine unspooling until he moves like he’s more liquid than human, like there’s not a single bone left in his body. He wavers and slumps and sighs and melts across any available surface.

Ryuji included.

If Ryuji’s boundaries waver and become mutable, Akira’s disappear entirely. In the privacy of his attic bedroom, all of his walls come down. The masks come off. What Ryuji sees is as close to raw, unfiltered Akira as he’ll ever get. His laughs, his sighs, his bitchy tired face; all of it is pure Akira, no strings attached, no added decorations.  

He’ll spend half an hour trying to balance popcorn kernels on the tip of his nose, grimacing at Ryuji every time they fall to one side or the other, butter smears on his glasses, and then roll over and drop his head onto Ryuji’s shoulder like it’s nothing. He’ll grab Ryuji’s hand and press on the bones in his palm until Ryuji splays his fingers out wide, then tell him to clean out the dirt from under his nails with a grin like a breath of warm summer air. He’ll fall asleep halfway through a movie in the most uncomfortable positions known to man— his head tilted back against the wall like he’s trying to break his neck in half, or rested in both palms while he’s sitting cross-legged on the couch.

Sometimes, Ryuji just lets him sleep, turning the tv down in deference. Other times…

Other times he’ll reach over and ease Akira down into something approaching comfortable, and occasionally Akira stretches and mumbles and resettles with his head shoved up against Ryuji— hip, thigh, knee, it doesn’t matter. The first time, he’d been too nervous to do anything but sit straight and still until Akira woke back up on his own, but now it’s second nature to comb his obnoxious bangs out of his face so they don’t tickle his nose, to tuck an errant lock of hair behind his ear before it falls.

On one overly-humid day towards the end of July, the sky boils. (Not literally, but almost.) The plans to go into the Metaverse get scrapped; quietly, Ryuji’s grateful for it. In weather like this his leg aches like nothing else, quiet agony radiating up and down his thigh until walking without a limp takes more effort than he really wants to give. It’s bone-deep, past the muscles and the skin, and nothing short of a long soak in a hot tub gives it any relief, but their tub’s been busted for ages now, and Ryuji’s never liked sitting still in the bathroom for that long anyway.

He plans to head home anyway, but Akira grabs his elbow and invites him over for some video games, and he’ll be damned if that doesn’t sound a hell of a lot better than wasting the afternoon away watching tv with a heating pad tucked over his leg. He agrees without hesitation.

They travel at a slow amble, half because they’re not in any sort of rush and half to try and keep pace with each other under Akira’s tiny-ass umbrella. It’s barely made for one, much less two and a bag full of angry wet cat, and both their outer shoulders are soaked by the time they make it through the cafe’s doors.

Boss just gives them dirty looks, but he also throws them a pair of towels from behind the bar, so he must not be that upset. Ryuji still grins at him sheepishly as he slinks his way upstairs.

God, between the walk and the stairs and the storm his leg aches something _fierce_. He gives up on pretences  and stretches it out as soon as he sits down, his heel on the shitty wooden chair, and digs his fingers into the meat of his thigh with a groan.

He’d hoped he’d be done by the time Akira came back upstairs, but something just feels so _fucky_ with his leg today, the angle’s all wrong, and the more he mindlessly kneads at it the more his face twists, the deeper it aches, until a cool hand on his ankle startles him out of his fugue.

Akira cocks his head at him. “You alright?”

Explaining would be messy. He doesn’t wanna bring his mess up here into this calm oasis, his quiet spot, his good place. He nods, pressing his sweaty paws into the fabric of his shorts. “Just got a— a cramp,” he says.

“Need a hand?”

What’s he mean by that? Ryuji squints up at him, but there’s nothing but openness in Akira’s face as he puts the mug of coffee (and can of soda that Ryuji knows he keeps downstairs just for him) down on the table and kneels— kneels!! — beside him. “I’ve been, uh, I’ve gotten a lot of first-hand experience with getting cramps out lately,” Akira finishes with a wry little squiggle of an expression that Ryuji doesn’t quite know how to interpret. “Can I?”

How is Ryuji supposed to be able to say no to that? He’s never been freakin’ able to say no to Akira in the _first place._ All he can do is make a flustered gesture and then— lie back and take it or somethin’.

Surprisingly, he’s not perfect at it.

His first few motions are too hard, and Ryuji bites back a grunt as the ache intensifies. “Little less, uh, down motion,” he grits out, “try ‘n, like, push or somethin’.”

“If I had a hundred yen for every time I heard something like that,” Akira murmurs, just barely low enough that Ryuji’s not really sure if he heard anything at all. But his movements smooth out and become less forceful. Something about the angle he’s at makes it better— maybe it’s that he’s coming at it from the outside, but the ache in his thigh finally starts to dissipate, and the relief from pain lets him finally relax all the way down to the couch, till  Ryuji’s shoulders touch the seat and one of his arms dangles off all limp.

Akira’s fingers slow, then, but they don’t stop. He moves to the outside of Ryuji’s leg, to the soft part where his knee hinges, down the line of his calf and into the arch of his foot, firm unyielding pressure that makes him groan.

And then he moves back up with barely any pressure, the pads of his fingers brushing up the line of Ryuji’s shin, mapping him inch by inch. He wants to contract until the whole of him fits into Akira’s palm. He wants Akira to touch him always.

The thought makes him throw an arm over his face to hide his blush, to force the pressure in his eyes down. No one’s been this nice to him in a very, very long time. It’s so good. It’s so overwhelming. And that a touch this nice is coming from Akira—

Akira, who’s moving, his hand still wrapped around Ryuji’s ankle and the other one coming up to rest against his elbow. He peeks out underneath his arm; Akira peeks right back at him from where he’s come to rest beside the couch, beside his face. At some point, while he wasn’t paying attention, the clouds have parted outside. The whole room is bathed in gold.

Ryuji swallows, trying to force the knot in his throat down. He can’t read the expression on Akira’s face, he couldn’t even start to try— his traitor brain wants to map out emotions and feelings that can’t possibly be on there. No one’s _ever_ looked at Ryuji like that.

But no one’s knelt beside him to help massage the ache out of his thigh, either.

Akira watches him, uncharacteristically still. Behind his glasses, his eyes are wide, dark, unfathomable. Ryuji would pay millions of yen to know what’s going on in his head right now, and double that amount to make sure that nobody could ever parse what’s going on in Ryuji’s own. Akira’s hand moves up to Ryuji's knee, presses down as he reorients himself; the other moves up Ryuji’s arm slow as syrup, from elbow to shoulder, pressing his fingertips against Ryuji’s neck.

 

 

His thumb meets Ryuji’s jaw and brushes down it. Ryuji can’t hide his shudder, but before he can flinch back and apologize Akira’s mouth parts. He bites his lower lip.

Back down his arm, then, light as a feather, his touch spreads goosebumps behind it. It feels so indescribably good. Up again, his thumb beneath Ryuji’s jaw tilting his head back another few degrees so the backs of Akira’s fingers can stroke down the line of his throat. The hand on his knee moves up and off, and if he could spare two braincells to rub together he’d mourn the loss, but then it comes back as a heavy weight across Ryuji’s stomach as Akira braces himself.

He can’t see how Akira’s moving this time. It’s a shock to open his eyes and find Akira’s face hovering right above him. Like, _right there._ Close enough that Akira’s all he can see, dark hair and pale skin and grey eyes drilling into him. “Th’hell, man,” he slurs.

“Shh,” Akira tells him, barely over a breath. “You can yell at me later.”

“‘M not gonna yell,” Ryuji protests, only to be quieted again by Akira’s hand gently pressing against his shoulder.

“You might.”

“Won’t,” he insists— insists, like there’s something to insist about, like there’s a second conversation hiding in the words of the first. “Akira.”

His best friend, his closest confidant, sighs out a breath and closes his eyes. “Ryuji.”

“C’mon.” He doesn’t know what he’s asking for, but he’ll take whatever Akira wants to give him. Whatever touch he wants to dispense. Any of it, all of it. He wants it.

The hand bracing him slides over to cup the back of his neck. Akira drops another few inches as his weight settles on his forearm instead, close enough now that they’re all but smushed together, that he’s all but pinning Ryuji to the couch, caging him between his arms, his torso. It’s a safe and almost cozy feeling. He feels punch-drunk, in a way.

Maybe that’s what prompts him to lift his arm and loop it around Akira’s neck.

It catches him off guard. Ryuji has the best front-row seat to watch him startle, watch his eyes widen and the faintest hint of red come into his cheeks like Ryuji’s touch is unexpected. Look how the turns have tabled now, huh? He grins, languid and loopy, debating on whether or not to grab him with the other one, too.

It feels like the most natural conclusion in the world when Akira ducks his head and kisses him.

  
  
  


In the casino, before everything goes to shit, there’s a moment of calm like a held breath, or the wind-up before a strike hits.

In that space between beats Ryuji-as-Skull reaches out, and Akira-as-Joker reaches back. The briefcase rests heavy on their joined hands.

Ryuji squeezes down with his thumb, nowhere near as tight or hard as he wants to. He wants to dig his nails in, wants to reel Akira in with his other arm, bury his face in Akira’s neck and hold on so tight that Akira will never be able to slip away from him again.

He’s terrified.

He’s done his best not to show it; there’s no freakin’ way he’s gonna add any more shit to Akira’s plate, but the plan is risky as all hell. There’s way too many players, way too many moving pieces; Ryuji still barely understands most of it, but the part that really sticks out is that there’s a non-zero chance that Akira could _die._

Die for real. In the real world. No do-overs, no take-backs, just him and Akechi in a police room somewhere, and Ryuji will have to live the rest of his life without his best and closest friend.

The stuff between them...they haven’t really talked about it.  They’ve gone slow, doing the things they’ve always done, just with some...extra flavor. Sitting and playing video games, Akira’s knee pressed into his own. Sharing the same bed during sleepovers now, wound tight around one another, Morgana alternately bitching about space or curled tight into the small of Ryuji’s back.

Trading kisses, sometimes, but it’s hard to get in the mood when you’ve got a permanent chaperone, and he’d feel like an ass kicking Mona out when it’s his attic too. It’s nice to go slow, anyway.

They haven’t even said the, uh… the b- word. Not that Ryuji doesn’t want it, he does, being Akira’s boyfriend would be freakin’ _awesome_. He’s the second-most important person in Ryuji’s life, after all.

He’s a lodestone, a guiding light, someone Ryuji will be forever happy to run beside. And if this all fucks up tonight, Ryuji will lose that forever.

He can’t think of it. He _can’t._ Not even when he wants to tie himself to Akira’s side, to go in his place so he can take the hit even when he knows it’s impossible. They need the leader, Joker himself, not his right-hand man.

But back in the moment, Akira’s thumb strokes across the back of his hand, a dull caress muted even further by the gloves between them.

Then both his hand and the briefcase are gone, and so is Joker, melting into the shadows like he’s never existed in the first place.

Ryuji swallows the hot lump of fear in his throat and starts running too.

  
  
  


He’s _alive._

He’s alive, warm and breathing and smiling and happy tucked into the booth while everyone else surrounds him, but for some reason Ryuji can’t feel anything but cold.

Akira’s alive and here and happy, but he’s _wrong._

He’s been trying to hide it the whole time, but the second Ryuji flung his arm around his shoulder in sheer utter joy Akira winced, made a pained noise that he immediately tried to brush off. Now that he knows what to look for, though, Akira’s body screams discomfort, from the way he walks to the way he sits, ramrod straight, the way he refuses to let even a single bit of himself relax.

Ryuji can see the hints of scabs on his cheeks and his lips, the shadow of bruises on his hands and his knuckles; he’s been friends with Ann long enough to know that there’s all sorts of shit you can do to cover up anything you don’t want seen.

The way that she refuses to meet his eyes when he stares at her tells just as much of a story as the way Akira makes sure his sleeves never inch up over his wrists.

So when everyone else starts trailing out, Ryuji keeps his butt on his barstool seat and refuses to move. He may run his mouth more than he knows he should, but there’s lots of things you can say when you don’t say anything at all. Akira’s taught him that much.

Akira meets his steady gaze, his eyes full of exhaustion. “It’s pretty late,” he says, “the last trains’ll be running soon.” Like Ryuji would even think of taking an out like that.

“Yeah,” Ryuji agrees, sliding off the stool to hover over him, “so let’s get you up to bed.” Asked and answered. Akira’s face twists in resignation even as he tips the last few inches forward to rest his forehead in the crux of Ryuji’s shoulder, his neck. “You’re not gonna go?” he asks. Ryuji shakes his head. “Fine. You’ll have to help me upstairs, though.”

It’s a struggle, one that Ryuji hates every second of. He practically has to carry Akira up the steps— he’s not bearing weight on one of his legs, and by the time they get to the top they’re both panting for different reason. Akira’s sweating, beads of moisture collecting by his hairline and leaving little trails through the shitty concealer he’s got plastered all over his face. He moans a bit when Ryuji lowers him down to the bed as carefully as he can.

Under his direction Ryuji runs back downstairs for the biggest bowl he can find and fills it with cool water, grabbing the whole roll of toilet paper out of the downstairs bathroom on his way back up. He sponges off Akira’s face and hands, just as gently and carefully as Akira did for his own wounds barely a few months back, hating the way Akira flinches, the way his breath hisses out from between his teeth as Ryuji wipes more and more of the gunk off his face. It’s like scratching off a lotto ticket to reveal a prize, only the prize is bruises dark as plums and abrasions the size of his palm and a split in Akira’s lower lip that bleeds the second Ryuji touches it.

He’s barely cleaned off both hands and half of Akira’s face when he feels the tears start to well up in his eyes. This is _bullshit,_ this is fucked up and bad and _awful_ and _wrong._ It’s awful that it happened to anyone, of course, but even more so that it happened to _Akira_ — Akira, who’s been through so much in the past few months already.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. _Ryuji’s_ the guy that’s supposed to take the hits—

“Thought I told you that I didn’t wanna hear that again,” Akira says low and gravel-rough. His hand wraps achingly slow around the back of Ryuji’s neck, drawing him inward from where he kneels between Akira’s legs to thump his forehead into the middle of Akira’s sternum. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

He wraps his arms so carefully, so gently around him, hyperalert and hyperaware, listening for any pained noises, but all Akira says is “watch the ribs.” His voice is even rougher, and Ryuji loses the battle of keeping his cool. His breath hitches once-twice-three times before Akira folds himself over the top of his head, clinging on as little shivers run through him.

He doesn’t pretend not to cry, and so Akira doesn’t either. They just hold each other, taking comfort in the fact that they’re both there, both _here,_ warm and alive and together.

After, when they’re all snotty and gross, Ryuji holds tissues up for him to blow his nose into, and manages a grin at the way Akira exaggerates a wince. He blows his own nose too, and wipes both their eyes; he holds the glass of water for Akira to sip out of while he takes several pills from unlabeled, unmarked bottles.

And when Akira finally falls asleep, curled stiffly into Ryuji’s side, Ryuji stays awake to listen to him breathe, to hear the beat of his heart.

He’s here. He’s alive.

It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.

  
  
  


Ryuji wakes up with grass in his mouth and phantom flames still licking across his back.

He stretches before he gets up, tests each wrist as he pushes himself to his knees. His mind is slow and sluggish as he connects wrists to elbows to arms to shoulders to torso to hips, knees, feet— himself, entire and whole.

Between one breath and the next his memory catches up with his mind and he freezes. _Fuck!_ He’s _alive!_

He’s alive, and exhausted, and so ineffably, gratefully relieved, because for a moment there he’d thought that that was _it._ Not that he’d have minded either way, because he got his friends out—

Or did he??  

It’s that thought that sends him staggering up to his feet punch-drunk and dizzy, his ears still ringing from the force of the explosion. He hisses as he moves, his clothes sliding all wrong over bruise after abrasion after ache, but that doesn’t matter right now. Can’t matter. He has people to find.

The far end of the street is empty. He staggers over anyway, just in case they’re around the corner. They’re not, but he catches the faintest hint of a raised voice from somewhere else. He smacks an open palm over his ear, irritated, and like he’s shaken something loose he can hear more now, unhappiness in every garbled phrase.

When he turns the other corner he sees them.

They’re all there, every last one of them, gathered close and wound in and around each other like a human knot, centered on Akira. Just as they should be.

He takes a moment to just look, to bask in the feeling of success. He did it. They _all_ did it. Every last one of his family is safe and sound and _alive._

They did it. They’re _done._

But then Ann turns to the side and let loose a hiccupping sob. He sees Yusuke wipe his eyes with the back of his arm, sees the way Futaba clings to Haru and Makoto’s stiff shoulders, her clenched fists. They’re upset, they’re unhappy, and Ryuji doesn’t know why but he’s about to find out.

He takes a woozy step forward.

Like he can sense him coming, Akira’s head snaps up. There’s a glassy look in his eyes that Ryuji instantly wants to dispel, one that sends him forward a few more staggering paces. As he does, Akira struggles free of the human knot; he meets Ryuji halfway and crushes him to his chest, holding him tight enough to hurt, tight enough that he can barely breathe.

“Hey,” he wheezes, but that’s all he can get out before everyone else piles in and on and around them too, a cacophony of raised voices and clinging hands and through it all Akira’s arms around him like iron bars, his tears hot where they hit Ryuji’s bare skin. “Hey, shh…”

“You were gone.” Akira’s voice is barely a whisper, barely loud enough to hear over the others. “You were gone and I thought—”

“Never.” Ryuji brings his shaky arms up to wrap around Akira, getting squeezed all the tighter for it. “Nothing keeps me down long, babe.”

He texts his mom with adrenaline-shaky hands after everyone parts, after Akira lets him move more than three or four inches away, to let her know he won’t be home that night. Nobody wants to separate; nobody wants to let him out of their sight, Akira least of all. They’re all exhausted, all bruised and drained, and they all pile into the cafe and up the stairs into the attic like an 18-legged amoeba, an amorphous blob of exhausted, keyed-up teenagers.

The futon Akira bought for Yusuke’s visit earlier that year is found and spread out, covered with all sorts of convenience store snacks and drinks, anything they were able to pick up on short notice. Akira keeps Ryuji firmly at his side, bandaging up his scrapes and bruises, and even after he’s done he keeps a hand on Ryuji’s arm or shoulder, his wrist or his calf or his ankle, like he’s trying to make sure he’s still there.

Ryuji leans into it pathetically, especially once the adrenaline crashes and the shivers start, and once that happens Akira bundles him into his lap with no arguments taken.

They stay up all night, a communal celebration full of life and laughter, and Boss comes up the stairs when he opens in the morning to find them all half-dead and watching stupid morning cartoons, mugs of coffee in every hand and Akira passed out like a rock on Ryuji’s lap.

  
  
  


When he wakes up—

Well.

He wakes up, which is more than he expected in the first place. His head hurts and his eyes feel tight and gritty, like he’s cried for a long time. He doesn’t feel anything but apathy, though, and a vague sense of regret.

He doesn’t know where he is, but he guesses it doesn’t matter. It’s probably purgatory or something. It looks like a cell, like the cell where Akira first woke up to his Persona but smaller and shittier and blue.

If it’s purgatory, he probably deserves it.

He stands. He’d stretch, but he doesn’t really… _feel_ like he needs to. He doesn’t really feel at all. The cell looks like it should be cold, the stones rough and wet and cold to the touch, but they’re not. There’s not really any sensation at all.

Ryuji leans his forehead against the should-be-rough brick and wonders for the first time whether or not all of this was worth it.

All the pain, all the injuries, all the late nights and excuses made to his ma; the blood spilled and tears shed and bones broken and stress and struggle— what was the point, if in the end he just ended up here? What was the point, if no one ever actually believed in them at all?

He almost doesn’t notice when the air changes, when the mood shifts; he almost doesn’t see Akira, nearly indistinguishable from the endless dark stretch of hallway. All Ryuji can really see is bright white mask and bright red gloves. “Hey,” he says weakly into the silence between them, but Akira doesn’t answer. Maybe he’s imaginary. Maybe this is just another facet of purgatory that he’s got to deal with.

Honestly, he’d rather have imaginary Akira than no Akira at this point. The silence, uncomfortable with just one body, is oppressive with two to fill the space, to echo it between them. So he talks, if only to try and work out how he feels— _if_ he feels— about this whole thing.

“This prison cell reminds me of when we first met,” he says, grinning without humor. “Gettin’ the shit kicked outta me in front of the hot new transfer student. Great start, right?” Akira doesn’t answer him. Ryuji didn’t expect him to. “Crazy shit. This whole day….crazy. Just...no one wanted to see what was happenin’ in Shibuya, not even when it was right in front of their goddamn noses. Even the people who were cheerin’ for us, the ones askin’ us for help….they didn’t want to help _us._ They just wanted everything to stay the same.”

He sighs and presses his forehead a little harder against the textureless brick. “Did what we were doing mean anything at all? We almost _died,_ man. I’m still not sure I’m _not_ dead, and you’re not some weird figment of my imagination come back to judge me.”

The Joker beyond the bars smiles a bit at that, stepping closer to the bars of his cell. It’s encouraging.

“We almost died.” Ryuji says it again, quieter, letting the words coat his mouth in ash. They’ve had close calls in the Metaverse before, all of them— but this was the _real world,_ this was _Shibuya,_ none of that shit is ever meant to cross over! “I wondered,” he says, “out there, if maybe...we hadn’t been doin’ the right thing? That maybe...maybe we deserved to lose, y’know? We weren’t Akechi. We never killed anyone! But...was the shit we did right?”

The Joker behind the cell bars shifts from one foot to the other. Ryuji sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair. “Maybe it was never about winnin’ at all. Maybe it was just about continuing our own defiance, like...like a lil’ kid throwing a temper tantrum.”

He’s not expecting anything, vomiting his emotions out like this. He doesn’t even know if it’s making him feel any better to say all this shit, but once he started it just won’t stop, like lancing a boil full of pus. It just keeps coming, and it’ll keep coming until he’s empty.

He’s not expecting the quiet “That’s okay, though,” from Akira.

Ryuji snaps his head up.

He says it again, too. “That’s fine. Even if it is selfish, even if it is just for your rebellion, look at the lives you’ve changed along the way. None of us would be together if it wasn’t for you. I wouldn’t have had anyone this whole year. You and Ann wouldn’t have made up and become friends again. We wouldn’t have been able to help Haru, or Futaba, or Yusuke.”

“Haru’s dad,” Ryuji says weakly, but Joker shakes his head before he can even get his feet under himself.

“It wasn’t our fault,” he says. “Not at all. If Black Mask— if _Akechi_ was so ready to kill him, he had to have been on Shido’s shitlist for longer than it took to go through his palace.”

And Ryuji…

Ryuji believes him.

He laughs a bit under his breath as he pulls himself up to his feet. “You’re right, man,” he says, rolling his shoulders. “We’re doin’ this to make sure people don’t gotta go through the same crap we did, right? Doesn’t matter what they think of us. We just gotta keep doin’ the right thing anyway.” They’re words from his heart, words from his soul, even as his grin turns a little sour. “Heh. It’s not like people think much of me anyways.”

And then— and then Joker moves, _Akira_ moves, one blood-red gloved hand wrapping around the bars, staring into Ryuji’s eyes like a drill. His lips part, but it takes a few more breaths for anything to come out, and when it does it’s thick with an emotion Ryuji can barely read. “But I do.”

  


HIs voice is so soft, so tender, like honeyed butter, like lambswool, spoken into the space between the two of them like a caress. It hits Ryuji so hard he gets goosebumps, so hard his heartrate goes wild, so hard that when the fire crawls up his body and leaves his phantom thief suit resting on him like a second skin he almost thinks he’s caught fire from the strength of his blush alone. It silences him, rocks him down to his foundation, his very core; it leaves him mute even as the bars between the two of them disappear, as Akira steps back and Ryuji steps forward.

Once he’s clear of the cell, Akira moves to stand in front of him again. HIs gloved hands are cool on Ryuji’s face, real in a way that nothing else in this room is. He tilts Ryuji’s mask up with his thumbs, pushing it back into his hair, brushing over his cheeks, cradling his jaw in both palms. “Even if nobody else does,” he says, voice deep enough to throb in Ryuji’s bones, “you’ll always mean the world to me.”

“Dude,” Ryuji says, choked and strangled, and grabs Akira’s oversized lapels in both hands to drag him against his mouth.

  
  


Akira’s been weird since he’s come back from jail.

There’s a look in his eye that Ryuji doesn’t recognize, a sort of shadow, a pall that hangs around him even as he smiles at them all, even as he laughs. It’s troubling, to say the least.

He knows that not everything was going to be roses and sunshine and butterflies the second they got Akira back into their lives, he really did. Two months of jail doesn’t make for happy fun good times. Ryuji can’t even begin to imagine what went on in there.

He’s not going to ask, of course. As curious as he is, he’s not an _asshole._

But whatever it was, it left a mark on Akira, one Ryuji wants to scrub away by any means possible. It leaves him uneasy, walking away from the cafe with his cheek still warm and tingling from where Akira’s hands had cupped them before he kissed him goodnight, from the blush that still rides high in his face.

It’s not till he’s lying in bed that night, warm with the memory of Akira’s lips on his, his fingers twining through Ryuji’s own, that he connects the feeling of unease that’s been hovering in the back of his mind all evening. The Akira of two months ago would’ve plastered himself up against Ryuji’s side, threaded his fingers through his hair, grabbed his chin and pursed his lips up like a fish and then kissed him in front of God and everyone, and everyone would’ve made fun of him for it but he wouldn’t have cared.

The Akira of tonight was hesitant, and somehow Ryuji picked up on that, and was hesitant in turn. He reached out, but waited for Ryuji to reach back and connect. He shivered under Ryuji’s arm, shivered when Ryuji squished him playfully into the corner of the booth, trying to bite at the piece of cake he’d speared on his fork.

He stood at the door and watched them all go for an awful long time. And the way he said goodbye was almost like he didn’t _want_ a goodbye, but Futaba and Boss were gonna take him out for sushi, and—

And he just spent two months all alone in _prison,_ and even if Morgana’s back too he shouldn’t have to spend another night alone. Ryuji’s the worst goddamn boyfriend in the world for even walking out that _door._

His ma’s not home yet, even though it’s almost midnight; he writes the hastiest note of his life, and vows to send her a text as well, but he has to _hurry_ because the last trains are going to be running soon. Even if he misses it he’ll run all the goddamn way across Tokyo if he has to, but the train’ll get him there much _much_ quicker.

He gets to the station flushed, his hoodie flung haphazardly on over his pajamas, but there’s almost nobody around to give him weird looks. They’re all in their own little midnight worlds as well; the lady at the front of the car with bags under her eyes and the chunkies headphones he’s ever seen plastered over her ears like a physical barrier, the man with a baby carrier strapped to his front, humming barely audible to his kid, the elderly couple towards the back with their heads bowed together and their hands laced. They look happy.

He hopes they all get to where they’re going safe and sound.

As soon as the doors open in Shibuya station he’s off like a rocket, his sneakers slapping the pavement overly-loudly in the hush of deep night. It feels thunderous, like he’s announcing his presence with every cloudy exhale, every straining breath in, shouting _I’m here! I’m here! I came back, I’m here!_

It’s almost a surprise to skid to a stop in front of Leblanc and find every window dark and cold. Ryuji takes a moment to catch his breath, hands on his knees, trying to re-oxygenate his strained lungs. As he straightens, he catches a flash of dull light from the upper window, like someone checking a phone screen.

He could just text him. Could call him. Those’d be the best choices, but...just not the _right_ ones. There’s a few small pebbles scattered near his feet; he picks them up, cold and unyielding, and bounces them judgingly in his palm.

Breaking your boyfriend’s window prolly isn’t the most romantic thing to do, right? He throws the first one almost too carefully, muttering under his breath when it lands silently on the awning above Leblanc’s door.

The second one hits the window with a solid _tap._ Excellent. So does the third one, then the fourth, and just as he’s readying a fifth he sees movement just inside.

Akira’s pale face appears like a ghost, pressing against the glass. He’s not wearing his glasses, but he’s not squinting or anything. Ryuji waves, just in case he can see him. From the way he immediately disappears, he _probably_ did?

Oh, there he is, all but tripping himself as he bangs through the cafe, hitting a barstool, careening off a booth back, fumbling with the lock on the door hard enough that it rattles. Ryuji grins in barely-veiled relief that turns to surprise when Akira flings the door open, his chest heaving like _he’s_ the one who just ran all the way here from the station.

He’s barefoot, in that thin long-sleeved shirt and loose pants that he’s always worn for pajamas. They hang differently on him, the lines of his shoulders and hips changed from his time away, his collarbone stark against his skin. His grey eyes wide, fixated on Ryuji’s face. “Hey,” he breathes.

“Hey,” Ryuji says, and then...stops.

Now that he’s here, standing in front of Akira, this whole endeavor seems kinda dumb? _Hey babe, sorry to wake you up at literally midnight, I just felt like you needed someone else in your bed tonight? So I took it upon myself to run halfway across the city on the off chance you wanted—_

“ _Hey,_ ” Akira says, breathless in a way that makes Ryuji immediately sit up and take notice. “Hey. You’re— you’re here.”

“Yeah,” Ryuji shrugs, one hand cupping the back of his neck. “I just— I had a feeling?”

“I’m— glad. I’m glad. I was going to text you but— but it was so late and I didn’t want to bother you—” Akira’s shifting back and forth on his feet, in excitement or dismay or, more likely, at how cold the pavement is on his bare skin. Ryuji makes a disgruntled noise and steps forward, grabbing him around the waist and picking him up, just a bit.

Immediately Akira makes a shivery noise and goes completely, utterly still.

“Why’d you come down here without any socks on, dumbass?” Ryuji asks, barely above a murmur. Their faces are so close together; Akira’s eyes are so wide, and without his glasses Ryuji can see the dark circles beneath them. Of course he wouldn’t have been sleeping well in jail, huh? It must be a relief to be back home.

Akira breathes out something close to a laugh, draping his arms around Ryuji’s neck and pressing his forehead to Ryuji’s own. “Saw my boyfriend. Got excited. Can we go inside? It’s cold.”

“Oh! Oh, yeah, sorry man, here.” He could put Akira down, but his arms are so tight around his neck, and Ryuji’s too busy glorying in the contact himself. It’s fine, right? All he has to do is pick him up just a little more and get his arms under his thighs— yeah, just like that, like a reverse piggyback, and the startled laugh Akira makes into his hair sets Ryuji’s own heart pounding.

He hadn’t laughed like that earlier. Hadn’t been nearly this touchy, this clingy.

Even as he steps across the threshold, closing and locking the door behind him, Akira keeps rubbing his cheek against his hair. It can’t feel good; he hasn’t showered since yesterday, and the spikes must be prickly. “You’re actin’ like a goddamn cat,” he says without heat, bouncing Akira a little bit in his arms to another startled laugh. “You’re not gonna ask me why I showed up at your house or nothin’?”

“I’m sure you had your reasons,” Akira says, slightly muffled from where he’s got his whole face shoved into Ryuji’s hair. “It’s fine. I’d never turn you down.”

“Not even if I came over at 3 AM and woke you up?”

“Not even then.” His fingers laced behind Ryuji’s neck, he leans back far enough to plant a kiss right on Ryuji’s forehead. “It’s cold down here. Wanna go to bed?” There’s nothing eyebrow-raising about the way he says it, and he’s probably right; the bed’s gonna be the warmest, closest, coziest space for the two of them. And honestly, that’s what Ryuji wants right now. He’s glad Akira wants it too.

“Yeah, man. Let’s go get comfy.”

They should probably talk, but they don’t, not really. Akira’s almost screaming for his touch with his body language, bunting his face into Ryuji’s chest as Ryuji cards his fingers through his hair and down his neck, his hands fisting in the loose material of Ryuji’s sleep shirt as Ryuji's’ fingers slip underneath Akira’s own, rubbing up and down his back in smooth, slow motions. It’s unfamiliar after so long, laying in bed with another person, with Akira’s weight pressed on top of him from chest to calves, his head tucked deliberately beneath Ryuji’s own.

It must’ve been lonely. Two months without anyone; his friends, his family. It’s something Ryuji wants to ask about, but not now. Not while Akira’s contentedly running his thumb between Ryuji’s fingers, tracing his knuckles, the beds of his fingernails, like they’re the most interesting things to study in existence.

“Hey,” he murmurs sleepily, the thought hitting him all at once. “Happy valentine’s day, man.”

“Oh,” Akira says, and then yawns. “It is, isn’t it? Do you wanna do anything?”

He shakes his head. “This is good. All day, even.”

“Hell yeah,” Akira says, his teeth white even in the dim light of the attic. “Sounds great.”

  
  
  


Tomorrow’s the day, and Ryuji’s trying really, really hard not to think about it.

All around him the arcade is _deafening,_ ticket machines going off and shoot-em-ups rattling so loud he can barely hear himself think. That’s okay, though. That’s what he wants.

Akira’s going around saying his goodbyes today. He’s been texting him on and off, little cryptic notes tracking his progress around the city. Ryuji could’ve been anywhere today, honestly; he could’ve even gone along with him, Akira wouldn’t’ve minded, but it just felt wrong to invite himself along on such a personal sorta thing.

He’s touched countless lives around Tokyo, tons of them people Ryuji barely met until they were trying to get him outta jail. Tons of them are probably people Ryuji will _never_ meet, what with the five separate part-time jobs and all the dumb shit he did around here.

This city’s not gonna be the same without Kurusu Akira prowling the streets. _Ryuji’s_ not gonna be the same.

He sighs, bowing down over his fighting machine a little further— then jumps when a hand slips into his back pressure, a warm weight leaning into his side. “You don’t even have any credit in the machine,” Akira’s soft, silky voice purrs right in his ear. “What’re you doing, just pretending?”

“Just thinkin’, man, don’t _spook_ me like that!” He turns just far enough to get his arm around Akira’s waist, pulling him in for a quick, rough hug. “You done your rounds?”

“Mmm.” He’s got a bag in his other hand that he swings up to put on the console between them, holding the top open so Ryuji can see the assorted odds and ends inside. “Everyone wanted to give me something.” He waggles his eyebrows. “You got something for me too?”

“You’re such a greedy li’l dick, this haul not enough for you??” His hand scoots up Akira’s side, digging into his ribs until Akira chokes out a laugh and scrabbles away from him, yelling _I give, I give!_ “Serves you right, _that’s_ what you get!”

“So _mean_ to me,” Akira pouts. He straightens his clothes very obviously as Ryuji leans against the console behind him, smug and warm, and wistful. _God,_ he’s gonna miss Akira so much. “Aw, hey, no, get that hang-dog look off your face. We’ve got the rest of the afternoon, don’t we? C’mon.”

He stretches his hand out. Ryuji takes it without hesitation. “What’re your plans?”

“Dunno. I wanna wander. See what comes to me. You got any ideas?”

They could go to the fishing hole, but it’s cold and brisk and bright for March, the breeze just harsh enough to slip into anything exposed. The park is out for the same reason, and Ryuji doesn’t really wanna stay in the arcade. It’s too loud, too frantic, too much. He doesn’t wanna keep splitting his attention between everyone else and Akira. He just wants Akira.

But…he could make an exception.

“I do have one place,” he admits, his hand on the back of his neck. “You hungry at all?”

The beef bowl shop hasn’t changed at all in the year or so they’ve known each other. It’s the same atmosphere, the same smell, the same tables with the same furnishings and the same bin of pickled ginger (hopefully the ginger has been changed) that Ryuji starts sprinkling on Akira’s food the moment they sit down. Akira smacks his arm but grins at him, both of them chowing down like they’re starving teenagers. (Which, to be honest, they kinda are.)

Ryuji can’t fully enjoy himself, though. He just can’t get over the knowledge that this is _it._ Maybe until golden week. Maybe for longer. Maybe they’ll never have this again. Something could happen to either of them, to both of them. Feelings could die. Feelings could change. So much has happened in a year; who’s to say more of the same won’t next year?

“You’re thinking so hard your head’s about to pop off,” Akira tells him through a mouthful of beef. “Wanna talk about it?”

He kinda does. He opens his mouth, ready to tell him how much he’ll miss him, how much he hopes that whatever they have between them won’t change with the passage of time.

“I love you, man,” is what comes out instead, and Akira drops his chopsticks.

There’s no way to salvage it. They both heard what he said— and honestly, he goddamn meant it. Akira’s become so much to him over the past year, and even if they’ve only been dating a little while he knows what he feels is _real._ “I mean it,” he presses on. “You— you opened me up and crawled inside me, dude, it’s like you’re a piece of me nwo. I don’t know if I could’ve gotten through this year without you. I know that if you hadn’t been there, I’d be expelled. I would’ve let Kamoshida get the best of me, and he would’ve gone on to hurt so many other kids. So many other people. Maybe for years. Maybe until he retired.

“But you! Akira, dude, you _saved_ me. And you’ve been by my side ever since! You’ve supported me through every single thing I’ve done— makin’ up with the track team, tryin’ to rehab my leg some, all the dumb shit we did over the summer— and I can _never_ thank you enough for it. Even if we don’t end up together forever, you’re _always_ gonna be in here.” He taps his chest. “And I can never thank you enough for that. You’re _amazing,_ Akira. Thanks for— for everything. For being my friend. For dating me, and helping me to be the happiest I’ve been in _years._ Thank you.”

The whole time he speaks, Akira’s eyes don’t leave his face. His chopsticks lie forgotten, crossed over each other in his beef bowl; his hands scrunch up in his blazer. He takes a few breaths, his mouth wrinkling at the end of Ryuji’s monologue, and for a moment he's really really worried that he’s done something wrong.

But no. Akira grabs his hand a second later, holding on tight enough that his bones creak. “Shit,” he says, voice burred. “Ryuji, you can’t just say that sorta shit in the middle of a restaurant, I’m gonna cry.”

“Big baby,” Ryuji teases, and leans over to kiss him on the temple. “C’mon. Finish up and then we can go back to my place ‘n hang out.”

Later, they’ll lay sprawled on Ryui’s bed, tangled up in each other so much they can barely tell where one of them ends and the other begins. Later, Ryuji will unclasp his skull necklace and drape it over Akira’s neck, so it hangs down right below his collarbone, and Akira will cry for real and punch him in the shoulder, calling him a _romantic sap._ Later, he’ll have to kiss Akira goodbye at his door one last time.

But all of that is later.

For now, Akira just holds on tighter, and looks at him like he’s always looked at him, fully, wholly, with everything he is, and says “I think I love you too, Ryuji. I think. Is it okay to not know? I like you _so much_ — “

“We’ve got time,” Ryuji says, “don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out.”

And later, they will.

And later, they do.

**Author's Note:**

> i just wanna say one more thank you to cyan, and give the biggest shoutout possible to music and milk, the two main mods of the p5 big bang. i was there but i didn't really do much other than act as their personal court jester to keep their spirits high. you two are fucking powerhouses and this event wouldn't be a quarter of what it was if it wasn't for you!
> 
> i also want to extend the biggest congratulations possible to all our finishing participants! it's been a long haul but you all did amazing, and i can't wait to regenerate enough brain cells to gorge myself on your fics and your art!! 
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who wrote, draw, edited for, or just screamed in the general vicinity of this event! we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for each and every one of you!
> 
> and one more thanks to _you,_ the one who's eyeballs (or tts reader??) are on this fic right now. thank you for reading and i love you <3


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